by Bob Cooke
Pax Christi Metro D.C.-Baltimore co-coordinator
Last March I took a once in a lifetime pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Father Jacek Orzechowski and the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation. Although I felt I knew a decent amount regarding the plight of the Palestinian people under occupation, there is no substitute for visiting a place yourself and talking with some of the “ordinary” people involved in their struggle. I certainly learned a lot on that trip.
I have been doing some volunteer work with Pax Christi International, which is having its World Assembly in Bethlehem from May 13th to 17th this year. When Marie Dennis asked me to try to put together a pilgrimage to the Holy Land including attending the Pax Christi International’s World Assembly for interested people from the U.S., I gladly agreed (so much for once in a lifetime trips).
So 29 of us tired travelers are now in Bethlehem looking forward to at least three things – seeing and experiencing the physical places where Jesus and his disciples walked; learning more about the Palestinian people’s struggles for peace and justice by meeting with them and with Israeli’s working with them in this struggle, and attending the Pax Christi International World Assembly, where we will meet with peacemakers from all over the world and find out how others struggle for justice and the nonviolent peace of Jesus is the similar, and how it differs, from that of their sisters and brothers in Palestine.
So we hope you will be able to check out our blog posts every once in while and see what we learn. We look forward to sharing some of these insights with you.